1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to data decay. Specifically, the present invention provides a method, system, and program product for managing data decay.
2. Related Art
Information technology, particularly digital media storage, has provided enterprises and consumers with outstanding capability in recording and accessing information. Unfortunately, a number of technical and economic factors also mean that such data may become inaccessible over time due to changes in IO devices, degradation of the recording medium, changes in accessing software, etc. For example, large size diskettes (8-inch and 5¼-inch) were commonly used by businesses, consumers and enterprises in the 80s. Information saved on these diskettes is becoming inaccessible, because appropriate diskette drives are quite rare and because the media itself has become partially demagnetized. As another example, files created with word processors in the past may be unusable today, despite their residence on easily accessible hard files, because the word processor software is no longer available, and the format is not understood. While software providers often provide some transformation capability, such transformation does not include all past formats. For example, personal computer operating systems commonly offer to check online for further information if it is asked to attempt to open a file whose format they do not understand. These actions are taken only when an attempt is made to access the data. As these examples illustrate, data decay in various forms has become a growing problem.
In view of the foregoing, there exists a need for a solution that solves at least one of the deficiencies in the related art.